Scientists have discovered the ultimate Tinder tip: Manspread as much as you can

Attention Techly male demographic! Scientists have found the key to attraction. It’s not developing a sense of humour, regularly using deodorant, or clipping your toenails. It’s occupying as much space as you can. No elegance required.

A group of researchers, including scientists from Berkeley and Stanford, used speed-dating videos and Tinder (although they just describe the app as “a popular global positioning system-based online-dating application”) to seek a relationship between body posture and attraction.

Their findings suggest that we are more attracted to individuals displaying their bodies expansively.

According to the paper, a posture with an extended torso and opened legs is “a behaviour considered to express both dominance and openness.”

Their abstract states, “These findings indicate that in modern-day dating contexts, in which initial attraction often is determined by a rapid decision following a brief interaction or seeing a photograph, displays of expansive posture increase one’s chances of initial romantic success.”

In contrast, those who hunch up, adopting a “contractive pose”, fared poorly in their bids to win over potential partners.

In their speed-dating experiment with 144 individuals, expansive body language was found to nearly double the odds of getting a “yes”.

A subsequent study among 3000 individuals using the dating app found that mate-seekers were significantly more likely to choose a candidate displaying an expansive pose vs a contractive one.

“Expansiveness” – the tendency to expand your body in physical space – makes people appear more dominant, and apparently that is a well-sought trait on the dating scene.

In the scientist’s own words, “In a dating world in which success sometimes is determined by a split-second decision rendered after a brief interaction or exposure to a static photograph, single persons have very little time to make a good impression. Our research suggests that a nonverbal dominance display increases a person’s chances of being selected as a potential mate.”

It has been documented for decades how gorillas, peacocks and insects flaunt their physicality in hopes of securing a sexual partner, sometimes going as far as putting their genitals on display (although we’re not saying you should go all Boogie Nights on your next date – don’t blame us if you end up eating pepper sprayed).

Yet this study really gives you some food for thought – we’re not that different from animals after all.

Is that the reason my Tinder never rings?

About the author

Filmmaker. 3D artist. Procrastination guru. I spend most of my time doing VFX work for my upcoming film Servicios Públicos, a sci-fi dystopia about robots, overpopulated cities and tyrant states. @iampineros